Partial Listing of Upcoming Project Management Events
For a complete listing of events, please visit the Online Calendar at allPM.com

Software Management Conference 2003
June 2, 2003
http://www.sqe.com/sm

Project Estimating and Scheduling in Hartford, CT
June 2, 2003
http://www.iil.com/str_link_all_results.asp?select_cartid=361&ld=allpm

Microsoft Project User Group (MPUG) Southeast Michigan Chapter Meeting
June 4, 2003
http://www.mpug-sem.org

Project Management Fundamentals Class in Chicago, IL
June 9, 2003
http://www.iil.com/str_link_all_results.asp?select_cartid=389&ld=allpm

The Project Management Certificate Program Online
June 9, 2003
http://www.iil.com/str_link_all_results.asp?select_cartid=415&ld=allpm

Six Sigma Free Webinar Overview
June 10, 2003
http://www.iil.com/free_resources/six_sigma_overview_detail.asp

Pro-Active Project Execution Web Seminar
June 12, 2003
http://www.kamoon.com/newsletter/WebFormjc.asp

Building High Performance Teams in New York, NY
June 16, 2003
http://www.iil.com/str_link_all_results.asp?select_cartid=371&ld=allpm

MSP (Orange Belt) Oakland, CA
June 23, 2003
http://www.iil.com/str_link_all_results.asp?select_cartid=447&ld=allpm

May Poll Results

May's poll question: Which aspect of your PM processes needs the most improvement?

Resource tracking 42.86 % (18)
Procurement 7.14 % (3)
Status reporting 26.19 % (11)
Issues management 23.81 % (10)

Total votes: 42

As shown by the responses, "Resource Tracking " needed the most improvement in the eyes of almost half the respondents.

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June's poll question is: Which is most difficult aspect of your projects to take a proactive approach with?

A. Human Resources
B. Cost Control
C. Time Tracking
D. Resource Management

If you have not already done so, please stop by allPM.com and add
your opinion today.

Column: Positive Leadership in Project Management- Fifth in a Series, by Frank Saladis, PMP

Redefining Project Leadership

Many people believe that the definition of Leader means someone who climbs to the top, making tough decisions and living with the results while carrying the burden of accountability. Others define leaders as people who can inspire their teams and co-workers to achieve more than they thought was possible through motivation and trust, without issuing orders. No matter how you define it, leadership makes things happen. It makes people act. It produces results. There is, however, a positive and negative side of leadership and we should be aware of the effects of both sides.

The negative side: These leaders get things done by forcing their employees or team members to follow strict guidelines, company policies, and organizational protocol. They inhibit creativity by minimizing shared decisions and participatory discussions. They make statements like "I'm absolutely convinced that this is the way to go! What's your opinion?" Statements like that generally encourage very few responses. Leaders who fall in the category of negative leadership generally have very little trust in their teams and micro-manage to an extreme degree.

It is important to note that there will be times, regardless of leadership style, when there will be a need to make decisions without discussion or to overrule a team decision. These situations are governed by the nature of the issue at hand and usually don't allow for much decision making time. The leaders in this category do get things done and in times of crisis, they excel at achieving what must be done. They can make quick decisions and can live with their actions. They are precise in stating what they want and can assess loads of information quickly. The World Trade Center disaster of September 11, 2001 is an example of this type of leadership. Mayor Giuliani, known for his strong leadership skills and tight management style, acted quickly and decisively to bring New York City back together after a devastating event. He became a national hero but he was also transformed by the experience. He emerged as a role model and positive leader. (Suggested reading: "Leadership"- by Rudolph W. Giuliani).

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Frank P. Saladis (PMP) is Senior Consultant with International Institute for Learning, Inc. He has been involved in the development of standardized Project Management Guidelines (PMGs) for the AT&T Corporate Information Technology Services (Corporate ITS) organization and is the author of the Project Evaluation Review Process (PERP). He is the former President of the NYC PMI® Chapter

allPM Today Tips Feature
Top Ten Time-Savers in MS Project 2000, by Eric Uyttewaal, PMP

(Eric will be providing us with tips on MS Project 2002, when we finish the Top Ten Time-Savers in MS Project 2000).

Tip #7:
When you develop what-if scenarios with your dynamic schedule, you need to quickly see what the new totals on your project are: duration, work and cost. Choose from the menu Project, Project Information, and click Statistics to see the totals in the Project Statistics dialog. That is three clicks for every change you make. Display the Tracking toolbar instead and click the Statistics tool (the first tool on the Tracking toolbar) to get the same dialog with one click.

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Eric Uyttewaal (BS, Engineering; MS, Business Administration; PMP) is Director, Microsoft Project Certificaton, International Institute for Learning, Inc and author of "Dynamic Scheduling with Microsoft Project ® 2000." This tip appeared in the 10/2000 MPUG eZine. 

New Feature: Project Management Poetry!

allPM.com is very proud to present the poetry that two of our talented members have submitted! Please send yours to judy.umlas@allPM.com.

Poem: The Rime of the Project Manager, by Nikitas J Kalantjakos

Adapted from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - Samuel T. Coleridge, 1798

Along comes the Project Manager,
A meeting of the minds you see.
For it's time to report, time to reflect,
Time to climb the decision tree.

All are at hand,
All want to know,
How are we doing?
How does it go?

With steady voice and forever alert,
He begins his discourse and tale;
"Whatever the cost, whatever the effort,
This project, of course, can not fail!".

His audience now at the end of the rope,
Wondering what has gone astray,
Not another creep, such as scope,
Not one more again today!

He often imagines the day,
When this curse will be broken.
When value will be earned
With even a trivial, SPI-like token.

Now, look here, pay attention he declared,
Critical as this path may be.
I wonder if these new requirements,
Are making it forever harder to see.

Undecided, all hands remain,
As to whether we're ahead, behind or on track.
"We must be off-course they declared",
How can we bring such a variance back?

On to uncertainty and risk they proceed.
Not knowing why there is so much exposure.
Can we do this? Should we ask others?
To this, he had to bring closure.

For a brief twinkle of time, he imagines the day,
When this curse will make leave of creation.
When strong winds will blow, and confidence will abound,
With impressive and acceptable standard deviation.

Near or far,
He will come to a crossing,
Where lessons still learned
Will come to a passing.

There will be a time,
When he'll reach his destination.
When he'll announce "victory's at hand",
With sheer exhilaration.

All hands now know, how it does go.
All have approved the final motion.
The Project Manager stronger and wiser,
Eagerly sets sail for another unconquered ocean.

© 2003 allPM.com

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With just over 18 years of IT Development and Project Management experience
Nik is now Director of Project Management at DTN, Corp. In this capacity he
leads DTN's Corporate PMO and champions continuous improvement throughout the enterprise. He has witnessed Project Management from multiple camps (as a developer, project manager, and director of project managers) enabling him to create and nurture an environment that fosters positive change. Nik has been a guest speaker at numerous local and national events, authored
articles published in the U.S. and Europe, and has provided project
management training / consulting for State government as well as various
private organizations. Nik holds the PMP designation and is currently a
doctoral candidate in Management Information Systems.

Poem: Project Management Haiku, by David Berman, PMP

Expectations rise
Requirements always change
Scope seldom narrows

© 2003 allPM.com

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David Berman is a Managing Consultant for Quilogy (www.quilogy.com) in
Omaha, Nebraska. David has over seventeen years experience in project
management, structured methodologies, and full-lifecycle software
development using a range of desktop and enterprise platforms, languages
and tools. He holds the Project Management Professional (PMP) and
Microsoft Certified Developer (MCSD) certifications.

Column: Seven Tips for Successfully Managing Process Change, by Marina Spence, PMP

The only constant is change. But why then is it nearly impossible to manage a process group without running headlong into the resisters--the heavy resisters--who fight process improvement and change as if it were an invasion from outer space?

Despite its constancy, change is a big deal. Volumes have been written on how to successfully lead change initiatives, given most people's aversion to them. Since you might not have time to read volumes, here is a thumbnail sketch.

1) Communicate your mission - without using process-speak

Before you can communicate your process mission clearly, you and your team must define it among yourselves. What are you setting out to do? What are the 1-2 sentences that convey this? When you describe what your mission is, do eyes to light up in understanding or glaze over? Is everyone on the team able to communicate the same message?

Examples of clear statements that convey what you are doing are:

• The Quality Task Force is investigating the problems we have in delivering projects on time. We will then present recommendations for solving the problems.
• The Project Support Office will assist project managers in increasing their skills through training first, then through one-on-one coaching.

These sound simple - now. The challenging but important part is working with your team to agree upon and then define the mission.

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Marina Spence is a Managing Partner at Omada Management Group, a company that specializes in streamlined Project Support Offices. Contact her with any questions you might have at mspence@omadamgt.com.

Column: the Wild Project - Control Techniques for Project Success, by Frank Saladis, PMP

Control. We seek it, we hope to gain it, we envy other people who have it, sometimes we resist it. We even let ourselves lose it from time to time. We don't always like it when someone takes control, but many times we ourselves step up and attempt to do just that. One thing I believe most people will agree about is that without control procedures in place, we'd be in serious trouble. Control can reduce stress, keep order and help us manage our lives and our work. Without some element of control our safety and that of others can be placed in jeopardy. If you're like most project managers you have used the phrase "We need to get this situation under control" many times -- probably more often than you like to.

Control is associated with a number of items or issues within a project. Project managers need to control their teams, the flow of work, the schedule, budget, and scope (The Triple Constraint). Actually if you read the Project Management Institute's Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge® you will find that an integrated change control process is an essential part of project planning. All elements of the project require controls and that includes the nine knowledge areas of the PMBOK®: Integration, Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Risk, Human Resources, Communications, and Procurement. It is important to understand that each of these knowledge areas can be affected by a change in any of the other areas. Therefore a good, mutually agreed upon monitoring and control process should be developed early in the project planning phase and revisited through out the project life cycle.

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Frank P. Saladis (PMP) is Senior Consultant with International Institute for Learning, Inc. He has been involved in the development of standardized Project Management Guidelines (PMGs) for the AT&T Corporate Information Technology Services (Corporate ITS) organization and is the author of the Project Evaluation Review Process (PERP). He is the former President of the NYC PMI® Chapter

Column: Wisdom Perspective: Zen and the Art of Project Management, by George Pitagorsky, PMP

"So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all."

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Purpose
Getting projects done on time and within budget while delivering a satisfactory outcome is a challenge. Doing it while staying calm, cool and collected and learning something about your self, all at the same time, increases the challenge exponentially. The purpose of this article is to help improve the reader's probability of project success while "cultivating the peace of mind which does not separate oneself from one's surroundings".

The Case of the Stressed-out PM
Pat was a PM with ten years of experience in high-stress, sales driven projects. Her typical project duration ranged from a few weeks to several months. Pat and her team took on all the work they were presented with and generally made their externally set deadlines, but with lots of juggling and heroics. Because of the speed at which they worked they often cut corners and kept track of things very informally, relying on their ability to remember what they needed to do when they needed to do it. They were good, though occasionally, something fell through the cracks.

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George Pitagorsky (PMP) specializes in project management, information technology, productivity and quality improvement, systems requirements and organizational change management. He is listed in Who's Who as an expert in Quality Operations & Quality Improvement, and is the author of IIL's IT Project Management System, and developer of IIL's PM BASICS (TM)

Column: The Blind Leading the Blind, by David A. Schmaltz

You are blind because you believe you can see, not because you cannot see.

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined
Who went to "see" the elephant, though all of them were blind.

So begins John Godfrey Saxe's famous fable "The Blind Men and the Elephant," in which six blind men attempt, and ultimately fail, to describe an elephant to each other's satisfaction. The problem?

The first approached the elephant and happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side at once began to bawl,
"This wonder of an elephant is very like a wall."

Another swears that the elephant is clearly like a spear, while another "boldly up and spake" that it is actually more like a snake! And so, each in turn describes the beast. But they can't agree on whether the beast is really more like a wall, a snake, or a spear, so their innocent attempts to describe the animal together create not an elephant, but what Saxe calls a "theologic war."

Though Saxe wrote his fable more than 100 years ago, his story remains as current as today's headlines. The workplace sees plenty of such conflicts, where the blind certainty of narrow perspectives destroys any possibility for experiencing this elephant together.

These methods encourage the theologic wars that inevitably lead to failure, where each individual asserts the rightness of his own perspective, leaving everyone in the wrong.

©2003 David A. Schmaltz, True North pgs, Inc. All rights reserved

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David Schmaltz is a writer, teacher, and consultant with a quarter-century's experience in the field. Founder of True North project guidance strategies, Inc., he shows individuals and organizations engaged in project work how to escape tradition's cages to create more fulfilling project experiences. His book The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work focuses on the practical considerations that make projects successful and personally meaningful. His Mastering Projects Workshop graduates are among the most innovative people working on projects today. He hunts elephants from a Victorian home on a tree-lined street in Walla Walla, Washington. Contact him at David@projectcommunity.com (www.projectcommunity.com)

Column: Growing a New Entrepreneurial Spirit at JCF
by Muhannad Al Nabulsi

Three years ago, Jordan Cement Factories (JCF) faced two of the most significant changes that can hit a public-sector organization: privatizing the operation and joining with a larger, multi-national corporation. Obviously, we would be instituting structural and procedural changes that would affect our entire staff. In addition to planning our change management initiative to reengineer business processes and managerial policies, we also formally addressed the issue of culture change.

We knew that an actively involved workforce was essential to the widespread changes we were planning. We also knew that thorough communication and incentives could go far to win support and cooperation. All of these measures came together for us when we concentrated on unifying the individual interests of our staff with the interests of the company as a whole.

A "New Deal" for JCF's People
To carry us through the transition, we identified a core set of shared values and objectives and communicated them throughout the organization. These values came to form the basis for a "new deal" for the people of JCF and for a new working culture:

• Entrepreneurship. Evolution from bureaucracy to entrepreneurship to meet the challenges of competition and globalization.
• Respect. Promotion of respect for the rules of business, for the people and teams upon whom JCF depends for operation, and for a spirit of community within and outside of the organization, including shareholders, trade unions, customers, and partners.
• Leadership. Development of leadership externally to emerge as a regional and technical leader in the face of competition and internally to contribute to image-building, team-building, and people integration.

©ASQ Six Sigma Forum,31 January 2003
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Muhannad Al Nabulsi holds a postgraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from TU Freiberg/Germany. He is a certified quality manager (from Manitoba University/Canada) and a board member of JSQ. His authorship credits include one book in TQM Implementation, with two more books currently in progress, and more than fifteen quality research papers. Having more than twenty-five years' experience in the cement industry, mainly in production, training, and quality control, he is now a free-lance quality lecturer and consultant. At the time of this writing, he was JCF Horizon 2001 Project Champion. E-mail: manabulsi@joinnet.com.jo